The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Posh to splash out on the search for a star
Peterborough United are going to throw plenty of cash at finding the next Matthew Etherington or Simon Davies.
The budget for the club’s Academy will be tripled from next season with the demand they are producing three players of first-team standard every year from 2024.
Etherington and Davies, who co-incidentally manage and coach the current Posh Under 18 side, are two former Posh Academy players who went on to star for the firstteam before enjoying successful Premier League careers.
But Posh have not come anywhere near growing players of that calibre since Etherington and Davies signed pro terms in 1998 alongside eight other members of a team that reached the semi-finals of the FA Youth Cup.
Posh co-owner Dr Jason Neale is driving the club’s new policy and he has current manager Darren Ferguson on board.
Dr Neale said: “I’ve had productive meetings with the Academy staff and they are on board.
“To be frank if they are not producing three players every season then they are not doing their jobs.
“They asked for improvements themselves and we have tripled their current budget to help them.
“We currently run one team from under 9s to under 12s and we will double the amount of players at those age groups.
“We will be recruiting more players and we will be recruiting more coaches while helping the current ones to develop.
“By the year 2024 if our first-team manager has 24 players in his squad, three will be Academy graduates.
“We will also improve the pathway to the first team for 18 year-olds. If we have players who are just short of the required standard to go straight into the first-team squad we will sign them as professionals, but immediately loan them out to lower division clubs for them to gain experience.
“I would hope the guarantee of three players getting a professional contract would inspire the youngsters to push hard. They would know of the infrastructure, and the guarantee of three graduates, and you never know we might start getting a few more players coming through before 2024.
“We will now have a very well-funded Academy and four years from 2024 we would either have a whole team of graduates or we would have sold some on and generated our playing budget that way. It’s something I strongly believe in.”
Ferguson added: “It’s a great idea and tripling the Academy budget shows the club are serious. It’s very sensible for clubs of our size to invest in youth. I’m always happy to play youngsters, but apart from Jermaine Anderson, Leo Da Silva Lopes and Joe Newell I can’t think of many who have come through lately.
“Next season we have to have two homegrown players in a matchday squad rather than one as is the case now.”